


481. A period of decline; to fall into ruin

by SevlinRipley



Category: It - All Media Types, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alley Blow Jobs, Biting, Blasphemy, Blood Kink, Blow Jobs, Casual Sex, Clubbing, Decaydence, Dirty Dancing, Doppelcest, Doppelganger, Drug Addiction, Dry Humping, French Kissing, Grinding, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Makeup, Masturbation in Bathroom, Masturbation in Shower, Multi, OT7, Painplay, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, Semi-Public Sex, Sharing a Bed, Shower Sex, Stranger Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 02:55:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14886305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevlinRipley/pseuds/SevlinRipley
Summary: Eddie's licking his lips; suddenly they feel so dry. Then spinning around in the small bathroom stall, and planting a kiss onto Richie's lips, while pressing up from the floor on his tiptoes. He's giggling into the kiss before he can even think about how Richie needs to take his turn. How he promised he'd be there on the dance floor with Beverly, and the ecstasy on her tongue. How she was probably going to try to kiss one on to his before Richie waved her off and said, "I got somethin' better."He was partial to Molly, he was. But he was even more partial to Richie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a romanticized depiction of substance use/abuse and I do not approve of recreational drug use of any kind.
> 
> [ETA Jun/9/18: This fic is a re-post. I deleted the same day I posted because just hours later a photo was making rounds of Josh Ovalle with red eyes (apparently from a video he was in with Finn.) People were suggesting he'd been smoking pot. A few notes on this matter: 1) He's 19. His brain is still developing and he should definitely not be taking mind-altering substances without the approval of a medical professional. 2) He's 19. If he was smoking with Finn, a minor, he is _not_ a good friend, and that honestly disgusts me. For now I choose to believe that he was just having allergies, or the lighting was weird, because I couldn't find the Instagram Story, myself. DO NOT TAKE RECREATIONAL DRUGS IF YOUR BRAIN IS STILL DEVELOPING. THEY ARE NOT HARMLESS. Thank you.]

"Some cocaína, churro?" Richie asks, sweeping his arm toward the brown paper sandwich bag he'd cut the cocaine on. Eddie's rolling his eyes, pulling the straw from his fanny pack, and leaning in to take a line up his nose before he can even think to ask why Richie's calling him a dessert. Unless it's for the exact reason it sounds like. The whole, 'You're sweet as could be, why I could just eat you up.' kinda thing.

Ever since Richie got back from Colombia, he was obsessed with tossing out words Eddie'd never, in a million years, be able to retain.

As he holds one nostril down and presses the neon green, quarter-cut straw to just above the white powder, Eddie inhales, slowly tipping his head downward to get the whole line of it. It hits the back of his throat, the taste of it, and then his eyes are fluttering and he's tipping his head back and for just a second he feels like he's falling. But then Richie's catching him, laughing low in his ear, and hooking arms around his chest, kissing at Eddie's hairline in the teal light of the club bathroom. Muttering over and over, "Handsome, handsome, handsome," as if, in that moment, it means anything to Eddie. But it doesn't. How could it?

Then Eddie's shrugging out of his grip, eagerly switching nostrils and taking in his second draw. 

Eddie's licking his lips; suddenly they feel so dry. Then spinning around in the small bathroom stall, and planting a kiss onto Richie's lips, while pressing up from the floor on his tiptoes. He's giggling into the kiss before he can even think about how Richie needs to take his turn. How he promised he'd be there on the dance floor with Beverly, and the ecstasy on her tongue. How she was probably going to try to kiss one on to his before Richie waved her off and said, "I got somethin' better."

He was partial to Molly, he was. But he was even more partial to Richie.

 

Besides, Bev could just as easily press the strip to Mike's tongue, kiss him until they both went jelly and were swaying into each other, hips magnetized together, and arms slung around necks. Two pillars balanced against one another, both in danger of falling if not for each other. Kaleidoscope eyes, and drifting through each other like they were de-materializing, flecks of glitter caught in a gentle torrent, falling endlessly to the floor below.

Billy was the one who liked to stay sober the most. At least when they were out. At home, god forbid he spend a second with his pupils the average size.

Ben was easy, wary of getting in trouble for holding hard drugs, and clutched to his marijuana as though it were The Holy Bible. This meant that he and Bill were the only ones really capable of holding conversations with other sober people, able to pile everyone into a cab and make sure no one went home with a total stranger.

'Yes, yes Bev, I agree he's got pretty hair, but you know who else has pretty hair?' 'Who?' 'Jesus,' Ben had said slyly, fire dancing in his eyes as he looked into hers, and then she'd giggled and let go of the stranger's long locks, and let Ben pull her by the waist to the car. 'You done it with Jesus, Ben? He any good?' she'd asked, hips first into the car, into Bill's lap, before Ben was settling in after her and kissing her back into Mike's lap, shrieking merrily.

Then there was Stan... With his beautiful curls, and the dark circles under his eyes that made him look haunted and sickly. No one but them knew. Only they knew... That Stanley was head over heels, drop dead _in love_ with heroin. If not for the rest of them, he'd have been lost to it years ago. Stuck in the gutters with his needles and his tracks and his pretty, ghostly eyes, and a mouth swollen from sucking so much cock he'd be too full of cum to eat a real meal. How else was he gonna get the heroin, once he lost his job?

They'd found him like that once. Just once. In the alley with some guys cock down his throat, pants getting stained with shitty-smelling water, and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes while the guy dangled some tar over his face and told him to keep sucking like the whore he was. A part of Eddie thought some of the romance there was that Stan just liked being used by strangers, because he hadn't even been high then, yet... The heroin being lorded over him was to be his first hit that week.

It was a part of his own plan. The one he'd drawn up when he came to them, knees shaking where he sat on the couch of their too-small apartment and told them, "Guys, I think I wanna try heroin."

Back then, cocaine hadn't even really made the rounds yet. Richie'd had a rock or two, but nothing more. Was still flirting with the idea of it while trying to seduce Eddie into a three-way. 'Don't make me do it alone, Eds. I'll be so lonely without you... Promise you it's good.'

So when Stan, of all people, approached them, they'd thought he was joking.

For the longest time, he refused to do anything but drink. But then he was bringing up his notes on his palm pilot, showing them the schedule, passing it around. "I've planned out the next _year_ of when I'm allowed to have it. Please guys... I - I just want to try it once, but this is for if I like it." Like it. Eddie still snorted out a laugh when he thought about those words. Stan had meant if he got _hooked_ on it.

They should've said no. But they were afraid he'd do it anyway. Go behind their backs, get addicted, and then the plan wouldn't be in place and Stan would spiral and... well, there he'd go. Bye bye, Stanley.

None of them wanted that, so they'd studied the schedule, seen he was only allowed to take it on Saturday evenings, once a week every other month, then only twice a month. There were some work conflicts which meant he was adamantly _not_ allowed it, and even if they had to tie him to the bed (preferably with a vibrator up his ass and a feather tickling his cock) then that was what they had to do.

"Don't let me ruin my life," he'd joked.

But it wasn't a joke.

Because - okay, so not just once, more like ten or so times before they finally got their shit together - every Friday after the first few 'tries', without fail, they'd find him with someone's fingers in his mouth like fish hooks, shoving their swollen red dick into his pulled apart mouth, while his lips mouthed pleas into their skin before he hungrily sucked them down, and his eyes glazed over with want. Not necessarily for them, but what he was getting from them after. But again, Eddie wasn't sure that was the whole truth. Just the one Stan offered them.

They'd had to implement a buddy system for him on the weekends, someone practically chained to his wrist. He could get on his knees all he wanted, collect as much of the stuff as he pleased. But it was one hit, almost every Saturday. And that was that.

If he ever snuck any during the week at work, on his lunch breaks, they didn't catch him. And neither did his boss. As long as he was a high-functioning addict who could keep his job and help them pay their rent, and could afford (and actually remembered) to eat food, they didn't really care.

Bill didn't mind being the usual buddy. If Stan was really whiny for it, he could usually coax Stan down with a hand on his shoulder, as he unzipped his own pants. So there were benefits to keeping Stan on the crooked and narrow.

 

As Richie's leaning in, having been passed the straw, he begins inhaling the cocaine, perched on the back of the toilet, and Eddie gives a playful tug on his shirt collar. As if it won't interrupt Richie's breathing, make him sputter out messily and perhaps ruin his lines. Richie's used to this behavior though. Just turns and growls at Eddie, just as playfully, before sucking the rest up in quick succession. Not giving Eddie another chance to make a mess of his hard work.

Brain dilating, air flowing freer into Richie's lungs, he turns to Eddie, crowds him up against the locked stall door and pulls him up the door by his ass as Eddie musses his hair and forces his tongue into Richie's mouth. Richie's glasses are pressed up crooked between them, as their noses clash messily together and Richie rocks his hips into Eddie's crotch. Eddie's ankles are hooked at Richie's back and he groans when his head hits a hook on the door, but just slides his head to the side and resumes their frantic kissing.

Richie realizes, only momentarily, that they are in the women's restroom. No wonder it's so pretty, he thinks vaguely, before sliding his hands up Eddie's tattered tee where it rests under a hoodie that must be far too hot for the club.

He's mesmerized by the lines of Eddie's abs, his ribs, his pecks, and then his nipples. Thumbs pressing in roughly as he thrusts his hips again, Eddie's spine banging loudly into the door as his jaw drops open on a moan. "Richie," he's saying breathlessly in a tone that only serves to confuse. Is it chiding? Is it desperate? Is it imploring and dazed and loving? Richie doesn't know, so he bites at Eddie's lip, and his eyes roll back in his head at the taste of copper mixed with a high-pitched whine rolling off of Eddie's tongue, Eddie rolling his hips of his own accord.

"You taste so good," Richie mumbles, sucking the blood from Eddie's lip like he's caught in a vampiric fever dream, and then his mind tells him to go to Eddie's neck then, if that's the case. Eddie's sobbing with the force of the suction, Richie's canines playfully rub into Eddie's skin, considering breaking through. A tease and a tease alone, but Eddie's hard for it.

"Baby, I wanna cum," Eddie gasps out, shoving helplessly, uselessly at Richie's shoulder, because he doesn't feel like Richie's gonna pay attention if he doesn't _make_ him.

The pet name goes straight to Richie's dick, because when they aren't high, it's just 'Richie' and he's in love with the idea that Eddie might mean 'baby' more because his inhibitions are gone.

"¡Listo!" Richie's saying then sinking his hands down to hook his thumbs into Eddie's belt loops. He tugs back roughly, simultaneously dragging Eddie's jeans over his trapped cock, and urging Eddie to drop his legs down. Eddie cries out a moan, and then does, throwing his head back into the door and feeling his heart beat faster as the hit dulls the pounding of his heart in his ears momentarily.

Before he comes back to himself, Richie's mouth is on his cock, engulfing him like it's nothing. And it is, because he does this every time. Sometimes he even does it at home, while everyone else is scarfing down pancakes. Eddie petting at his hair with a mildly syrupy hand, and edging on calling Richie 'princess' as he cums down Richie's throat where he's tucked slightly under the table. Everyone around them pouring syrup on their eggs like that kid Mike Wheeler taught them to do. When he stayed for a week, that one time.

 

It was the most surprising thing that happened that week, as Mike _hadn't_ been high when he taught them that trick. The second most surprising, although it really should have come in last, was that although looking ridiculously alike and thereby bordering on creepy, they'd found Mike plowing Richie in the shower with fingers shoved into Richie's mouth as he told Richie to shut up. 'You're so much hotter when you're quiet. If you make another sound, I'm not gonna let you cum.'

Beverly felt particularly blessed when, at that, Richie made a desperate sound in the back of his throat, helpless. Mike turned out to be a man of his word. He fucked into Richie, came, right in front of everyone, and then let Richie drop to his knees on the tile floor while Mike shut off the water and gathered a towel about his hips. 'What? He likes it,' Mike had said, shrugging passed them, out the same door the steam was using as an escape. Richie'd let out a broken sob, and then began jerking himself off like it was the only thing he could think about doing.

Those who had done the discovering - really, they'd come to check on them after hearing a wail from the living room - stayed and watched until Richie came onto the floor, before feebly bending over at his waist and blinking back the water droplets cascading down strands of his hair. The fact that he hadn't been wearing his glasses - fog and all that - had given everyone pause when they first entered. Which was Richie, which was Mike? Until Mike had told Richie to be quiet, and then it'd become pretty clear. And there he was, curled in on himself, quiet, and drenched.

Mike - Hanlon - had attempted to swaddle Richie in a towel and bring him out, but Richie had shaken his head, holding up a finger. 'Let me have this,' he'd gasped out, closing his eyes and working around the empty feeling Mike Wheeler had left him with the second he'd pulled out. Neediness etched away by orgasm, and the ability to think consciously coming back to him. Mike Hanlon's brows had drawn, and he'd carefully asked, 'Did he hurt you, Richie?'

Richie had barked out a beautiful laugh at that, and then stood up on shaky legs, gratefully taking hold of Mike's forearm as he shook his head. 'Babe, no... Jesus, no.' Then he'd hugged Mike Hanlon close, getting his clothes all sopping wet with his body and mirthy smile. 'He's a good pitcher, Mikey. You might wanna take him up before he scurries off back home.'

And scurry back home, he had. After a week of running away from responsibility, and crashing on a stranger's couch who'd been listed on a website online, Mike Wheeler returned to his girlfriend and boyfriend and maybe a whole orgy of people, from what they'd gathered. Mostly all they'd gotten out of him was, 'I hate my fucking parents. My dad checked out when I was five, and my friends keep disappearing.' The Losers guessed he thought it was _his_ turn. Just for a while. They would've been glad to keep him, honestly, but they were proud of him for not staying.

 

Eddie smirks down at Richie, his lips wrapped prettily around Eddie's cock and the trash overhead lights glaring back at him off Richie's lenses. With a hand grasping Richie's hair, Eddie pulls him off his dick by his scalp, watching spit trail down Richie's chin. His nose is red, and so're his lips and Eddie can't help but think about fucking right back in, over and over till he's cumming. But then he lifts Richie's glasses gingerly from his face, folds the arms together, and sticks them in his hoodie pocket. Richie's gazing up at him like he's God, and Eddie can feel it running through his veins. Inhumanness.

He rolls his head back, against the door, and fists his cock once, gathering Richie's spit, before taking his thumb and drawing up the streaked eyeliner from the corners of Richie's eyes before sticking the pad into his own mouth. Tasting the khol and Richie and himself, in varying degrees of indistinguishable and palpable, on his tongue. It's rough against his thumb, and Eddie nearly gets lost in the feeling of sucking at his thumb because of all the textures there, and the tastes...

Then Richie's back on his cock, impatient and hungry for it, nosing at his navel, and stretching his tongue to lap at Eddie's sack before pulling back up to the tip and back down again.

Rolling his hips in short waves, Eddie doesn't hold Richie in place, so he can pull back or steady Eddie's hips if he needs to. But Richie takes the motions as a challenge and doubles down, trying to make Eddie cum as quickly as he can. A race against, not time, but a dimension that only exists in a cocaine haze.

He's helpless to it, giving into pull at Richie's hair as he goes down on him. Richie likes it, he knows, so he doesn't feel bad, knowing that Richie's scalp will flash with heat of pain when he does. Eddie has just enough wits about him to also put his foot up, between Richie's legs, and then Richie's humping the dirty sole of his shoe. Where gum has probably fossilized within the grooves of the rubber there, while he hollows his cheeks, and takes Eddie's cock as deep down his throat as he can. Humming until Eddie's load surprises his throat still, and he begins swallowing harshly, shoving Eddie's foot away to get a hand down his baggy pants.

Richie's orgasm hits him as Eddie's cock grows over-sensitive in his mouth, and Eddie's shoving him back by the forehead, head bouncing slightly against the stall's robin-blue wall. It only prolongs Richie's orgasm and then he's smiling warm up at Eddie before Eddie gets on his knees and crowds up into his chest, half-cuddling, half-imprisoning Richie in apology. "You okay? I didn't think I pushed that hard," Eddie says, kissing at the top of Richie's head several times, all while Richie's gasping out little laughs into Eddie's chest.

"Babe, I'm fine," Richie tells him easily. "It was probably just my ankles. You know? I've got weak ankles. Anyway, it was good."

"I love you," Eddie says, maybe participating in an entirely different conversation in his head? His lips find Richie's cheek bone as Richie furrows his brow and tries to find the words to say back.

Glasses are being slipped onto his face, as he's saying, "Jeez, babe. I love you too," so heart-wrenchingly soft that he thinks that maybe they're _in_ love. To his own ears, and brain, this is completely logical. Not to mention, he can see again, and it's a miracle, cause he thought maybe he dislodged something when he hit his head, but no, his optical nerves are still attached. Thank Eddie Jesus-Christ Kaspbrak.

Just as Richie turns his face up to kiss the underneath of Eddie's chin, sure that they're in the middle of proposing to each other right here on this beautiful bathroom floor where they both look like aliens tinged in blue-green light and eye-corrected magentas with red-rimmed, blood shot eyes, and swollen lips - Eddie's already climbing up off of Richie, reaching for the paper bag. With the pad of his pinkie wetted with his spit, Eddie scoops up the traces of cocaine left on the bag, and begins meticulously applying the residue to his gums.

Richie smiles at him, fond and proud of his boy for not letting anything go to waste. Then he's slipping to the floor and rolling out from the under the wall like a worm. He hears Eddie's somewhat muffled laugh from the other side, at his disappearing act, and balances himself along the edge of the door in what he can only imagine is an utterly charming way, to greet Eddie when he finally unlocks the door and exits the stall. "Hey beautiful," Richie says, smirking, "Think you forgot something." His eyes are pointed downward, and Eddie snorts out a laugh, falling into Richie's shoulder as he realizes he left his dick out.

"Shit," he says, eyes crinkled with laughter. Richie decides to tuck him back in himself, since he's the one who got Eddie out in the first place. Again, he feels this utter wave of romance overwhelm his senses. Like putting Eddie's cock away is the same thing as straightening a spouse's tie. This feeling is only reinforced when Eddie begins nuzzling the bridge of his nose into the underneath of Richie's jaw, as he's drawing his zipper up.

A distant part of him wonders if it's the cocaine he likes so much, or Eddie when they're doing it together. This time, unlike with Stan, it's obvious. But before Richie can tell Eddie this revelation, like it's a ring he can put on his finger, Eddie's locking their fingers together and pulling Richie out of the bathroom, not stopping until he's found Bev and Mike grinding on a mildly abashed-looking Ben.

Eddie rushes up to him, grabs his plump cheeks and presses a kiss to Ben's mouth. Ben, normally, would be faster on the up-take, but he's tried a new strain tonight, and it's made him a bit slower than usual. Like everything is happening behind a screen of dripping honey. Richie smiles wide at them, heart full, as Eddie's tongue prods Ben's lips apart. Then Richie's taking Bev's hand and leading her away, spinning her gently as she spouts out a series of words that sound like total gibberish in Richie's ears. "What?" he calls out to her, ducking his ear closer to the height of her mouth, noticing the pretty pink on her cheeks, and the glitter installed there, making her look nymphet.

Light and airy in a much brighter way than Stan's hollow nature. Stan who, despite his normally gaunt appearance, looks incredibly full and satisfied, where his head's in Bill's lap on the sidelines. Cheap metal chairs have been provided. Stan is stretched across a couple of them, with Bill petting into his hair as Stan watches their friends. Maybe. Maybe everything's far too hazy to make that kind of connection, but Richie'd bet that no matter what Stan thinks he's seeing, with that small smile on his face, he's thinking of them anyway.

"I said!" she screams back, before pecking him on the cheek, "Don't you hate every day but Saturday?"

Richie nods, enthusiastically. He really does... Especially when he realizes Mike's got Eddie spread out over his thighs, standing up, basically receiving a suspended lap dance. Ben's pressing tickling kisses to the side of Eddie's neck as his chest supports Eddie's back, Mike's hips moving in circles against Eddie's ass. It's a cyclone of motion that Richie could lose his mind to softly.

Beverly frowns when she realizes Richie had stopped spinning her some thirty seconds ago, her feet taking her around and around despite any hindrance Richie might have been causing by holding her hand. She pokes him in the cheek, calling his attention down to her eyes, then her mouth, and back up again in slow increments. "You okay?" she asks, practically falling into him as her dizziness catches up. He braces a large hand on her hip, and nods his head with eyes that can't quite focus.

"I wanna die here, Marshmallow," he tells her, light and low, serious all at the same time. He wants to die spinning and spinning and spinning with his friends all around him, music pumping in the background like it exists only in a neighboring world, while they all smile and kiss each other. And nothing ever quite reaches the ground.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • **Translations:** 1\. cocaína = cocaine 2. [churro](https://www.speakinglatino.com/basic-spanish-phrases-colombia/) = Colombian slang for 'handsome' 3. [listo](https://www.speakinglatino.com/basic-spanish-phrases-colombia/) = ready, done, ok!
> 
> • _Huge fucking note of importance:_ I DO NOT SUPPORT THE RECREATIONAL USE OF DRUGS, PERIOD. If you are unhappy and seeking something to numb a pain, I greatly urge you to seek counseling. Go to a free clinic and express your concerns to a medical professional. All doctors can in some capacity address mental health, or give you a recommendation at the very least.
> 
> I would be absolutely **_devastated_** if any of the actors associated with these characters decided to use substances as a coping mechanism. Sincerely, it would break my fucking heart.
> 
> • Shoutout to [itsinningthings](https://itsinningthings.tumblr.com/post/170835520021/public-menace-stenbrozier) for adding to my footjob/humping kink.
> 
> • Please feel free to point out typos/grammatical errors. (Yes, I used some made-up words, lol, don't mind those. They're stylistic.) I wrote this kind of bug-eyed and exhausted and a little mentally shy of well. --- I broke a rule in doing this fic, but to the Universe: I relinquish all responsibility of anyone getting hurt by drugs unless it's my own self. / Universe: What if I told you this is roleplay fic and they're only pretending to take drugs? Gotcha, motherfucker. --- ...Don't worry about this paragraph tbh.
> 
> • All of y'all: DON'T DO DRUGS. (I'm looking at celebrities, too right now, among everyone else on earth.)


	2. Chapter 2

A couple nights later and there Richie was, restlessly lying on one of the several beds of the house. And Eddie just so happened to be laying beside him. It was dark in the room, almost completely. He just couldn't fall asleep. Monday nights were often like this. Difficult to wind down from after an overwhelming day at work. The taste of carelessness still fresh from Saturday, with no route backwards. Only forwards. Four days more.

This night, in particular, however, something was running through Richie's mind. An ache left over after the medicine faded away. Sometimes it took memories along with it. But not this time.

"Eds?" Richie asked, voice cracking after so long being quiet. Breaking over his effort to not wake Eddie up if he was asleep.

Eddie wasn't. His day had been long too. Too long. Too long to end the second he laid back, exhausted and weary. "Hm?"

Richie turned his face, just an inch, toward Eddie, squinting his blurry eyes at him to try and make a shape. See if Eddie was looking his way, or at the ceiling. He was on his back, just the same as Richie; he could tell that much form the way his voice carried. "Are you sober?"

He just had to check. This wouldn't mean shit if Eddie wasn't. And while there was comfort in that, Richie'd rather save his breath. His nerves.

"Yeah."

Thinking back, he hadn't seen Eddie drinking with his dinner. Nor sharing anything with Bill. Taking anything from the little treasure chest they had. Like at the dentist's office, but instead of toothpaste, brushes, and floss - there were things to make your hands disappear, your nerves anthropomorphize, tingles run up your spine and over into the next. He thought Eddie was telling the truth, not just saying so in a stupor.

"Can I hold your hand?" Richie asked, then, pinky already twitching to traverse the space between them in search of Eddie's palm.

"Yeah?" Eddie said, uncertain, even as he took the leap and locked their fingers together over the sheets Richie couldn't remember changing in the last year or so. Maybe one of the others had thought to. Maybe not. "Why are you asking?" Eddie's tone was amused, bordering on concerned. Normally if Richie wanted to hold his hand, he'd just take it. Like he did with anyone else. Just grab their hand and prop it up in his lap. Press kisses to their cheeks in the middle of a conversation. Collapse over their backs and rub his nose in their necks.

"Cause I have to tell you something, and I'm not sure how you'll feel about it." Eddie wasn't mean-spirited in any kind of way. He was always far too patient with others, giving them far too many chances to win his affection, his respect. To his complete and utter detriment at times. And Richie didn't want to be victim to Eddie's ever-revolving warmth, this time. He wanted to know that Eddie's reaction was real, whatever it was. Didn't want Eddie to sugar coat anything. Lay himself out on a track to avoid hurting Richie. Especially not when it'd so obviously tether Richie to him, and they'd both get smashed to smithereens.

"Okay," Eddie said, then squeezed lightly at Richie's hand.

He pulled in a long breath, and then quietly said, "I love you, Eddie."

The air between them grew stagnate, as both refused to breath, unable to stir the oxygen around them. But slowly, Eddie blinked to himself, and then turned onto his side, still gripping Richie's hand. Like they were floating in the night sky, the only thing to hold onto: each other.

"I know you mean it differently, than before," Eddie started. Immediately laying to rest any notion that he misunderstood; Richie did not mean it platonically, in that familiar way in which the lot of them often spoke about the others. But Eddie was wrong. It was the same way Richie had always meant it. Richie just hadn't fully gathered that together at the time. Hadn't thought to hide it behind simplicity.

His love for Eddie _was_ that simple. Too simple and easy and free.

"You don't have to love me back," Richie said, the words rushing out faster than he could think them.

"I know."

"I don't want you to pretend."

"I won't."

"So you don't have to say anything if you don't. It's okay. But if you do say something, make sure you mean it, Eddie."

"I will."

"Cause I won't be able to take it if I find out I've held you back from anything, or trapped you. I'm not your mother. You don't have to love me. I won't make you."

"Thanks," Eddie said softly, tentatively feeling out whether Richie was done. Or if he had more to say. So he gave Richie extra time, as he curled into his side, nose settling in at the underside of Richie's jaw, tucking their ankles together close, as Eddie held their clasped hands to his stomach.

"So don't lie to me. Or yourself," Richie said, practically gasping it out. One final breath of helpless doubt and fear.

"Okay," Eddie said, as certain and as confident as every other time. His other hand now resting over Richie's heart on his sleep shirt, fingertips grazing the tear at the seam of his collar.

Eddie let himself take in the rhythm of Richie's heaving chest, the sigh of breath between his lips as it worked from his lungs. The way his hand twitched within Eddie's, tempted to pull away. Tempted to pull his whole body away, and maybe off into the night. Empty streets, stray dogs, knocked over trashcans, orange lamplight. On and on until he grew tired enough to come home again.

Then he pressed a kiss to Richie's sunken-in cheek, and muttered into his skin, "I love you, too. Is that okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to make sure everyone knew where I stood on this. This fic is _not_ angst, and there's no such thing as unrequited love unless you're seeking your love from drugs.


End file.
